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other times he would
Reports of Medical Missions.
JUNE,
only move his head significantly at his irons. Purga- tives and blisters had a very happy effect; after a few days he was quite restor- ed to his usual health. By trade a cannon founder, and addicted to free living. Poisoning by Opium.
Applications to rescue persons from suicide by opium have been very fre- quent. Unfortunately, however, they are often made too late. When I arrive with all speed at the house, by chair, by boat, or on foot, the patient is usually just dead, or in articulo mortis. An affecting case occurred last month. At 1!! P. M., I was urgently requested to go to a street in the sixth ward, distant about one mile and a half. A sedan was provided, and I was carried there with great haste through the narrow streets, with torches leading the way; when we met with any impediment, the chair-bearers called out-“ Make way! Very important business! Saving a man's life "'—on which the foot passengers moved away right and left. All the hurry, however, proved of no use. The young man had expired. His wife with tears and lamentations intreated me on her knees to save her husband's life, and she could scarcely believe that he was really dead, though the strongest ainmonia put into the eye made no impression upon it. This young man had swallowed a large dose of the ex- tract of opium to relieve hinseif from the misery of seeing his wife and son dying before him for want of food. He was by trade a silk weaver, and had latterly been quite unable to get any employment.
Record of Four Cases that were Recovered.
One was an old ladly, the wife of one of the official linguists, who had swal- lowed in a fit of anger a quantity of opium to prove her innocence of a charge that she was the cause of her daughter-in-law's hanging herself the day before (to whom I had been called, of course too late to save life). The puinp was promptly applied, which removed the opium from the stomach, and in a few hours the old lady was as well and blithe as ever.
The second case was that of a young woman who had swallowed a large dose of opium from jealousy. She was quite insensible when I reached the house. The use of the stomach pump was completely successful, and its effects much astonished the bystanders. Some said I was a second Wa To (an ancient physician now deified), and that I had the hand of a Budha.
The third case was a man about thirty-five, who in the absence of his brother had broken open his money-chest, and stolen out of it 2000 dollars which belong. ed to another party, intending to replace it by the gains he expected to realize by gambling with it. He however lost the whole during one night, and in the morning, from vexation and chagrin, determined to destroy himself by opium. He dissolved half an ounce of the strong extract in a little hot tea, and secretly swallowed it. When I saw him, his face and lips were livid, pulse feeble, respiration low, pupils almost insensible to light, and it was scarcely possible to rouse him to sensation. The stomach was soon emptied of its contents, the pump being kept in operation till a colorless fluid was ejected, which with the injection of warm water with a few drops of ether in it, restored color to his face, and in a few minutes he could answer slightly when violently roused, and swallow a little tea. It was evident from his soon relapsing into the lethargic state that a considerable portion of the opium had been absorbed into the system; by careful watching for some hours, dashing water on his face, keeping him roused by dragging him about between two men, and other expedients, torpor at length disappeared.-This man was bent on self-destruction, and I heard some days after that he had drowned himself in the river.
I may here refer to a spectacle that I witnessed in Macao, the impression of which will not soon be erased from my momory. Before me, in a small rooin of a house of ill-fame, among the Chinese settlements, was a tall, well dressed man lying upon a bed quite dead; near his side lay a young woman in a par- tially insensible state, who, on our attempting to introduce the tube of the sto- mach pump, violently resisted, and with her hands firmly grasped the clothes of the deceased man, and all our efforts were unavailing to induce her to relax her hold, or to swallow the least portion of fluid containing emetic sulphate of Zinc. Her eyes were red, face Blushed, and pulsé quick. She had vonuted
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